The Ubuntu team is very pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 13.04 for Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products.
Codenamed “Raring Ringtail”, 13.04 continues Ubuntu’s proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. This release cycle has seen a significant push toward daily quality, which has allowed most developers and users to participate more actively throughout the cycle, and we feel this also shows in the final quality of this release.
Along with performance improvements to Unity, updates to common desktop packages, and updated core and toolchain components, Ubuntu 13.04 also includes the new Friends service, to consolidate all social networking accounts via Ubuntu Online Accounts. Also included is a tech preview of Upstart’s new user session feature.
Ubuntu 13.04 default desktop
To be fair, Ubuntu 13.04 is a good, solid release. It has a more finely tuned and polished Unity shell, with incremental improvements in the Linux kernel and in all the major preinstalled applications. But that's it —
no amazing new features. It even loses a couple of things: there's no ability to install the GNOME classic shell (unlike GNOME 3.8 which does offer a classic mode); and no WUBI (Windows-based UBuntu Installer).It is possible to install a GNOME 3 shell (version 3.6.3.1 at present) from the Ubuntu Software Centre, but if you don't like Unity, GNOME 3 may also not appeal, as you cannot even scale the size of its icons (or at least not without editing the gnome-shell.css file). Alternatively for GNOME die-hards there is now an official remix of Ubuntu, called GNOME Remix.
The GNOME 3.6 desktop, as installed on 13.04 from the Software Centre. 'Show Applications' has been selected, showing that the icon scale is rather larger than Unity's.
Arguably, 13.04 has lost three things because Gwibber, the social networking client, has gone too. The recent introduction of the Qt/QML application development toolkit prompted Gwibber's author to update and rewrite it. As part of that process, the application was renamed Friends and as it's not yet fully developed it's no longer part of the default installation set. You can install it separately from the Software Centre though.
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Another casualty of Dash rationalisation: the drop-down
text navigation, hidden on the left-hand end of the
desktop bar in 12.10 (above), is now gone in 13.04.
What might have been: Smart Scopes
Early on in the development cycle, Mark Shuttleworth hinted at plans for some startling new features in Ubuntu 13.04. However, the only new feature that briefly surfaced was Smart Scopes, which promised to short-circuit the browser by extending the scope of the Dash search bar.So keen were Shuttleworth and the Ubuntu developers to include this feature in Raring Ringtail that a slip on the feature freeze date for the beta was authorised to try and accommodate it. This still wasn't enough time, however, and Smart Scopes are currently slated for Ubuntu 13.10.
Smart Scopes are designed to allow you to search for anything, anywhere (local or online) by entering a simple search term to the Dash search. The existing Dash scopes would remain the same (Home, Applications, Files, Music, Pictures and Video displayed as icons across the bottom of the Dash pane), but the Dash Filters are to be expanded with many further scope modifiers helping to increase the accuracy of the search. Online searches will be referred to a Canonical-maintained server using a learning algorithm (hence the 'smart') to refine searching.
Unity 7
In Unity 7 a new-look Nautilus file manager adds file operations icons in a bar above the folder and file window. This seems slightly at odds with the principle of the text drop-down menus for the current application always appearing at the top of the display in the desktop menu bar. The top-level text menu for navigation that used to appear in the desktop bar in 12.10 has now gone, so the only way to navigate to Computer, for example, is via the left-hand panel menu in Nautilus.
New file operations icons occupy a bar at the top of the Nautilus window.
New icons for Unity 7: the Software Centre icon and Software Updater icon now share an 'A' element and the predominantly orange theme with the existing Ubuntu One and Ubuntu One Music icons.
New icons for Unity 7: the Software Centre icon and Software Updater icon now share an 'A' element and the predominantly orange theme with the existing Ubuntu One and Ubuntu One Music icons.Apart from the changes to Nautilus and the new icons, many of the differences in Unity 7 are subtle and you might not notice them unless you were running two machines side by side performing the same tasks, one with Unity 7 and one with the previous version. These include: fuzzy search for application names in Dash; faster rolling reveal for launcher icons that overflow the bottom of the launcher bar; a further application-switching method using the mouse scroll wheel; and in the options list revealed by right-clicking on the applications launcher icons, if two instances of an application are open a dot appears next to the instance that has the focus.
Linux Kernel 3.8.0-19
Improvements to the Nouveau driver in the 3.8 kernel (the previous Ubuntu 12.10 release uses the 3.5 kernel) mean that 3D acceleration is now supported, for all of the GeForce graphics chips available so far, without the need for further configuration. However, better performance may still be achieved via Nvidia's proprietary driver. Intel graphics are also well supported.There are improvements to the file systems too, with support for Samsung's F2FS (Flash-Friendly File System) and upgrades to the still-experimental Btrfs and Ext4.
Preinstalled applications
The preinstalled application on Ubuntu 13.04 are: LibreOffice 4.0.2.2 (office suite); Firefox 20.0 (browser); Thunderbird 17.0.5 (email client); Rythmbox 2.98 (music player); Shotwell 0.14.1 (photo manager); Remmina 0.9.99.1 (remote desktop client); and Brasero 5.6.1 (CD/DVD burner).
Better Social Media Integration
Ubuntu's Online Accounts preference pane has some handy new features. Now, when you add an account (like a Facebook or Twitter account), you can choose which apps on your system have access to it. Want Shotwell to access your Facebook photos, but don't want Empathy using it for Facebook chat? You can turn it off here with the flick of a switch.
The Dash also has a new Social lens (see the top image in this post), which allows you to see status updates from the friends you follow in your integrated social media apps. It also gives you notifications of new messages or mentions coming in, which is kind of cool.
What's next?
Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical have a stated goal of creating a platform-agnostic operating system — that is, an OS that will run on desktop PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones, all presenting the same user interface with touch support.Current plans indicate that operating system convergence is to occur with the release of Ubuntu 14.04, due on 24 April 2014. A number of consequences seem to be rippling back from this aim point as the Ubuntu developers get to grips with what will be necessary to achieve this convergence. I've mentioned plans to move from X Windows to the Wayland display server in previous Ubuntu release reviews. One result of the convergence plan is that Wayland has now been dropped in favour of Mir, Ubuntu's own display server, which is currently under development.
Another consequence is that some of the features that were to be included in 13.04 have been shelved in favour of presenting a polished and solid release, with most of the improvements residing behind the scenes. As a result, Raring Ringtail may seem a bit of a disappointment. Some new features should appear in October's 13.10 release, but you'll have to wait until 14.04 for the really big changes.
Availability
Download Ubuntu 13.04 at: www.ubuntu.com/downloadFind out about developing for Ubuntu at developer.ubuntu.com
Download Ubuntu Touch Preview onto spare devices here.
Get involved with Mir here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Mir/GetInvolved
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